Save your parents’ finances (before they ruin yours)
MSNBC, January 23rd, 2007
If you’re already worried about your
financial future, the Federal Reserve’s emergency rate cut may do
little to calm your nerves about the economy and your investments.
Stocks are down 10 percent from the start of the year, the housing
market is in crisis and even slightly lower mortgage rates won’t help
those who want to refinance if they have little or no equity in their
homes already. It’s hard not to panic — especially when you consider
that few of us have saved as much as we want or may need to in the
future. Our
parents may not have saved as much as they need to either. CNBC
correspondent Sharon Epperson, author of “The Big Payoff,” says that
fact could increase our financial burden down the road.
If our moms and dads are relying on us to pay for their
expenses — from groceries to utility bills in early retirement to
long-term health care in their 70s and 80s, how will that impact our
own financial future?
There’s been a lot of attention focused on the
“sandwich generation” — baby boomers getting squeezed by having to pay
college tuition and help pay off student loans for adult children,
while also helping to financially support aging parents.
Offering
financial assistance to parents has also become a significant issue for
those in their late 20s, 30s and early 40s as their parents have fallen
short of their savings goals.
Forty-six
percent of baby boomers have saved less than $50,000, according to the
2007 Retirement Confidence Survey by the Employee Benefits Research
Institute, which also found that most boomers also haven’t calculated
how much money they’ll actually need in their nest egg to live
comfortably in retirement.
Read more of this article.
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